SANFORD, Florida – A 31-year-old woman, who admitted she started a sexual affair with a 13-year-old boy that lasted three years, was today ordered to prison for 2 ½ years.

Sylvette M. Barretto (pictured left) pleaded no contest in May to having sex twice with the boy, but Assistant State Attorney Martine McCarthy said the couple had sex twice a week for three years.

The victim, she said, had been robbed of his childhood. She asked for a seven-year prison sentence.

The defendant’s father asked the judge to place Barretto on probation so that she could take care of her elderly grandparents in Lee County, where she now lives.

“I am deeply sorry for what I have done,” the defendant, in tears, told Circuit Judge Marlene Alva. “It will never happen again.”

At the time of her arrest last year, she lived near Winter Park and did clerical work at a hospital, according to her arrest report.

The victim, now 17 and in high school, asked the judge to send Barretto to prison. He read a long statement, saying he’s now filled with self-doubt, is afraid of the future and is suspicious whenever he sees fathers showing attention to their children.

The plea deal called for a lighter-than-normal prison term – no more than seven years – but it left the final decision to the judge.

She pointed out that men who sexually abuse children often serve longer prison terms than women who are convicted of the same thing.

“I don’t know why that gender bias should be perpetuated,” she said. “There’s damage that occurred here to a child.”

She then handed down the 2 ½-year prison term and ordered Barretto to serve 12 years of sex-offender probation upon her release. That means she’ll have to wear a satellite monitor.